About Gainesville Tango

9-23-2008

I created this blog to have current information on what Argentine Tango Lessons and Milongas are currently available in Gainesville, Florida. I did this to remedy the fact that most of the Web sites including the newspaper had outdated/incorrect information, and it took me several weeks to find out the current information when I moved here to Gainesville in 2008.

If you love Argentine Tango or would like to know more about it, please come to one or all of the venues listed and meet our friendly community of dancers and make new friends and share the passion.

Or contact me for more information, presentations, exhibitions, demonstrations or private lessons for social dancing.

Come to UF tonight at 8:30 p.m. It is the last class of the semester before the holiday break (free). Restarts first week of January. Also in January Andrea Pham starts new classes Wednesday nights for beginners. Saturday nights come to 601 S. Main Street at 7:30 p.m. for a free beginners class and then milonga from 8:30 – Midnight. ($10.00 regular, $5.00 students.)

a) No minimum age really. We have a 7th grader and an 11th grader that frequently attend.

b) Traditional Tango music from the Golden Age of the 20’s to 50’s is fairly slow and low impact. Andrea Pham’s class concentrates on the fundamentals of the walk, posture, embrace and musicality of the dance. You might be able to start with this.

Friday night UF Tango club concentrates more on steps and some Nuevo steps with crazy off-axis movements would be a bit too much for your knees right now probably but the kids would be fine.

Saturday night Milonga Y Te’ downtown is mostly 2/3’s traditional music and you should eventually come to check it out or dance. The other third is Tango Vals (danced at a Waltz time) and Tango Milonga which can be faster and more emphatic and you might want to just watch that until you learn the steps and are sure of your knee strength.

Fundamentally, Tango is hugging someone with a warm embrace and good posture and walking elegantly around the room to passionate music. So if you can walk, you should be able to do it.

After that you can add simple turns and eventually complex turns and fancy stuff that looks more like acrobatics.

But for social dancing, it’s mostly just elegant walking (easier said than done) which takes lots of practice actually to get the Tango Walk down and looking good.

Here is a typical example of social dancing speed and exertion

There is more torsion on the ladies knees when she does pivots on turns but the men not so much, unless he has poor technique. But that would be something to watch out for so you don’t overdo it in the beginning. Use your own good caution and advice from your doctors/chiropractors/therapists etc.

Argentine Tango social dancing in general is very low impact and less strenuous than Ballroom, Latin or Swing dancing. Tango shoes are slightly more angled forward than ballroom dance shoes as you dance mostly on the metatarsals (balls) of your feet as you hug your partner.

Social dancing is easy compared to the Nuevo styles and the Fantasia/Stage Tango you see in the traveling shows like “Tango Fire “and “Forever Tango”, etc. where they do crazy lifts, drops and dips, etc.

Friday and Saturday nights you can go and watch for free to check it all out.